Preet Bharara's 5 Secrets To Success In The Law
What is the difference between a good lawyer and a great lawyer?
Preet Bharara
Since getting fired by Donald Trump as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara has been one busy guy. He took a job — executive vice president — at his younger brother’s media company, Some Spider Studios. He launched a podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet, and he amped up his Twitter activity. He joined CNN as a senior legal analyst and NYU Law as a distinguished scholar in residence. He landed a book deal.
Bharara has also been hitting the speaking circuit (and providing a model for others regarding how to deal with protesters). He’s an insightful and entertaining public speaker — see, e.g., his Harvard Law commencement speech, his remarks accepting the AABANY Public Service Leadership Award, or his address to the New York Financial Writers Association — and so of course I wasn’t going to miss his appearance at last week’s (awesome) Clio Cloud Conference in New Orleans.
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After warming up the crowd with the inspiring story of how his brother Vinnie left the practice of law to become an entrepreneur — a highly successful one, who sold the company he co-founded to Amazon for $540 million — Preet Bharara shared four pieces of advice that have served him well in his own remarkable legal career.
1. No matter what kind of lawyer you are, try not to be a jerk.
Lawyers, especially prosecutors, have a reputation for not being nice people. We need to change this, through our actions. Dickens famously wrote that “the law is an ass” — but lawyers don’t have to be, according to Bharara. “Try to be the kind of colleague that people will take a bullet for,” he said, “not the kind of colleague that people want to put a bullet in.”
This is something that Bharara himself had to learn during his career. When he was at a law firm, he recalled, “I was really good at being a jerk — I could write the best ‘F.U.’ letter back to the other side, after they sent us a nasty letter drawing first blood.” But when he got to the U.S. Attorney’s Office during his first tour of duty, as an assistant U.S. attorney, and showed a draft of a nastygram to an older colleague, that colleague told him this was not how the U.S. Attorney’s Office rolled.
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“You don’t have to respond in kind” to unfair and unfounded criticisms from defense counsel, this colleague said. “Stay above the fray, and give this the back of the hand that it deserves.”
Some lawyers mistreat their junior colleagues, using their supposed perfectionism or quest for excellence as an excuse for abuse. These people are weak and not strong, Bharara said. In the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, “You don’t lead by hitting people over the head — that’s assault, not leadership.”
2. Speak simply and listen intently.
Lawyers have a reputation — unfortunately, a well-deserved reputation — for how quickly they lapse into legalese. Bharara recounted a conversation between former colleagues about a new restaurant. The first mentioned a great new restaurant that he encouraged everyone to check out. The second asked, “What, if anything, did you order?”
People think of talking as a major part of a lawyer’s job, but in many cases, the lawyer’s most important task is to listen. Think of a deposition or cross-examination: if you’re not listening closely to the witness, instead just sticking to your prepared outline, you could miss the opportunity to ask a crucial, killer follow-up question.
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As Bharara put it, “To be a good lawyer, learn how to speak well; to be a great lawyer, learn how to listen well.”
3. Put together the right team.
It starts with hiring great people, of course. Don’t be afraid to hire people who are smarter than you. In fact, you should seek to hire people who are smarter than you, and you should consult with them early and often about important decisions.
After you hire great people, the key question becomes: whom do you put where? Not everyone is excellent at everything; think of a baseball team, where who plays which position holds paramount importance. Little differences in quality can be critical, especially when you’re playing in the big leagues.
During his time as U.S. Attorney, Bharara learned that not all great line assistants made great supervisors; some did, and some didn’t. A good leader must be prepared to move people to where they can do their best work — and get their buy-in when doing so, even if initially they might be apprehensive about the move.
4. Feedback matters.
People need to know what their leaders expect of them. Bharara recalled one situation from his time as U.S. Attorney when he felt he wasn’t getting sufficient real-time updates during a high-profile matter. He went in to speak with the deputy U.S. attorney and complained, asking why he wasn’t being given regular updates. His deputy asked him: did you tell the team on the case that you wanted frequent updates? Bharara then realized that part of the problem was his fault, for not making his expectations clear.
Feedback goes both ways. For example, supervisors appreciate it when the individuals they’re supervising confirm receipt of requests. “My favorite email as a manager,” Bharara said, “was when I would send out a question or request, and I’d get an immediate response saying something as simple as ‘yes, on it,’ or ‘roger,’ or ‘got it.’ Otherwise I as the manager didn’t know the status of my request.”
With feedback, it’s not just quantity, but also quality. When you give or request feedback, make sure that the feedback is specific. If a certain piece of work product was good or bad, what exactly made it good or bad? Detailed feedback is what allows people to learn and improve.
5. Whatever you do, act with integrity.
For lawyers, integrity must be the coin of the realm, and this must be made clear to everyone in an organization. When he was U.S. Attorney, Bharara’s office would frequently receive criticism for being too harsh or too lenient (often with regard to the financial crisis, in which case the criticism was too lenient). But Bharara and his colleagues were not fazed, because they knew their goal was always to do the right thing for the right reasons, whether the public was watching or not.
Leaders of firms or offices can’t simply tell their lawyers about integrity once, like at orientation, and leave it at that. Integrity must be emphasized over and over. Think of a marriage, Bharara said; spouses say “I love you” to each other throughout their relationship, not just on their wedding day.
Bharara returned to the difference between the good lawyer and the great lawyer: “A good lawyer can defend against charges once brought; a great lawyer can render unthinkable the bringing of charges in the first place.” So great lawyers are the ones who ensure that their clients’ actions and character remain unimpeachable and beyond reproach. For great lawyers, the most important advice to a client is often given in a boardroom, not a courtroom.
“A good lawyer makes a living,” Bharara concluded. “A great lawyer makes a difference.”
David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.
